The blog

SP2: no performance problems

I often grit my teeth when I read “expert” advice on performance that has no relation to external reality. That’s why I was very happy to see one Web site perform a comprehensive set of system benchmarks aimed at answering the question, “Does Service Pack 2 slow you down?”

They ran 108 separate benchmarks, with a heavy emphasis on gaming-related tests. The SP1 machine had better performance scores on 63 of the tests, while the SP2 machine was faster on 42 of the tests. If you’re into this sort of thing, you can look at all six pages of charts and graphs. Or you can skip to the conclusion:

The test PC equipped with Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 was an average of 0.5% faster than the same hardware with Service Pack 2 installed. The percentage difference between faster and slower is insignificantly small. Less than 2 or 3 percent in some benchmarks could be dismissed by most but when gamers are looking to squeeze every extra frame out of their machines…it may count.

One-half of one percent is statistically a blip, especially when the test results are distributed in both directions. I’ve personally installed SP2 on a whole bunch of computers and this test matches my experience. If you see a noticeable slowdown after installing SP2, look elsewhere for the cause.

Disenchanted with Dell

I’ve bought at least two dozen computers from Dell in the past five years. Three of them are still here in my office, including the PC I’m typing this post on and the server that runs my home network. I’ve lost count of the number of PCs I’ve bought from Dell for friends and neighbors.

In the past year, though, I’ve become increasingly disenchanted with Dell, thanks to support policies that have turned practically hostile. Last year I had to fight for months to get a $200 rebate that I was entitled to. I ordered a PC with this rebate and received paperwork indicating a purchase date that was several days after the actual date on which I bought the PC – and, not concidentally, after the date on which the rebate expired. I was one of many Dell customers who experienced this problem, a fact I uncovered thanks to the excellent Dell support forums. But Dell’s customer service representatives didn’t seem interested in this problem, and it took at least 10 phone calls, my blood pressure rising a few points with each one, to get the rebate. On the last call, the outsourced Dell rep tried valiantly to talk me into settling for 25 cents on the dollar. Nice try.

Last week I had another run-in with Dell. A good friend has a four-year-old Dell Dimension 4100 that still does everything she wants it to do. The trouble is, it has a case fan that sounds like it could qualify for a Nascar event. It’s so loud that you can literally hear it two rooms away when the door is closed. Needless to say, she now turns on the computer, does her online tasks, and then shuts down.

This is a known problem with the Dimension 4100, I learned from the Dell forums, and many people received replacement fans when they complained. Good for them, because the fan is a proprietary part, consisting of a plastic bracket containing a standard 92mm case fan. I have a spare fan, but there’s no way to remove the defective fan from the bracket without breaking the bracket into pieces, and there’s no easy way to attach a standard fan to the case (except by using duct tape or Super Glue).

I found the part number and tried to order a replacement from Dell. After hours on hold, I found that the part was out of stock. Three different reps promised to check on the part’s status and get back to me. None of them did. The last one I spoke to told me I was simply out of luck.

On my 12th call, after complaining loudly, I was transferred to a customer service representative who searched Dell’s worldwide inventory, found the part, and agreed to ship it to me, free of charge. That should have been the response on the first call.

It’s unfortunate when a manufacturer uses proprietary parts instead of standard parts. It’s worse when they don’t keep those parts in stock for the tens of thousands of customers who own those computers. And it’s practically unforgivable when they treat those customers like a nuisance instead of an asset.

I used to recommend Dell enthusiastically. I’m not sure I’ll do so again – and I know I’ll look carefully at my friendly local PC builder first.

The amazing hidden backup program

My brother-in-law is never afraid to ask a question. This week, he’s concerned that his copy of Windows XP Home Edition is missing the backup program. Where is it?

It’s on your Windows XP CD.

From Windows XP Inside Out, Second Edition:

If you’re running Windows XP Home Edition, you won’t find Backup Utility on the Start menu or even in Add Or Remove Programs. It is included, though; you just need to know where to look. To install Backup Utility, you need your Windows XP Home Edition CD. Use Windows Explorer to open the Valueadd\Msft\Ntbackup folder, and then double-click Ntbackup.msi.

Mission accomplished.

Update: The Windows XP Backup program is installed by default with Windows XP Pro. Based on user surveys, Microsoft decided (incorrectly, in my opinion) that anyone using Windows XP Home Edition wouldn’t be interested in the Backup program. That’s why you have to manually install it. Thanks to Woody for asking this question in the comments.

Update 2: If you have a recovery CD instead of a “real” Windows XP Home Edition CD, you can install the Ntbackup program from a borrowed CD. If you can’t find one of those, download the installer from this site.

Update 3: If you’re looking for advice on how to actually use the backup program after it’s installed, see this article I wrote last year: Windows XP Backup Made Easy.

SP2 resources

I’ve done a whole bunch of site improvements here. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that comments are enabled again – for some threads, anyway.

I’ve also created archive pages by category, which you’ll find linked in the sidebar on the right (or on the main Archives page, available from the link at the top of every page on the site).

I get a lot of questions about Service Pack 2, so I’ve categorized the SP2 posts and collected them on the SP2 Archives page.

Like it? Want me to add something? Leave a comment.

Shoebox or file cabinet?

Old joke: The world is divided into two kinds of people, those who divide the world into two groups and those who don’t.

Heh. Actually, I think the world is divided into people who file stuff neatly and those who throw everything into a shoebox. I’ve historically fallen into the latter category, but I’ve always felt a little guilty about it. Which is why I was eager to try a new program called ClearContext Inbox Manager. It’s an add-in for Microsoft Outlook that is supposed to automate the process of sorting and filing e-mail.

How does it work? Well, let’s just say that yesterday, my inbox was overflowing with 4500 messages. Today, it contains 29 messages, all of them related to a project I’m working on now.

ClearContext is easy to set up. Deceptively easy, in fact. I was convinced I had missed something, because installation and configuration were so simple. The program works by examining your Contacts folder and prioritizing your contacts. You answer a few questions to improve the automated process. Incoming messages get assigned a priority based on the sender, the recipient (messages addressed directly to you are more important than those where you’re a bcc), and your level of involvement in the thread. Based on the priority level, each message gets a color code.

Messages get assigned to topics, which map to folders in your mail folder. In about 15 minutes, I set up Auto-Assign rules to automatically categorize messages from mailing lists and frequent correspondents and then move them into folders.

When all was said and done, my inbox was slimmer, all remaining messages were sorted so that the most important ones were at the top of the list, and I was able to quickly delete almost a thousand unnecessary messages.

Thanks to a new toolbar in the Outlook window, I can assign a topic to a message with one click and file it in its folder with another click.

I had done some of this stuff with Outlook message rules, but the ClearContext Auto-Assign rules are much easier to create. Likewise, it’s possible to file messages into Outlook folders, but this add-in makes it much easier.

I’ve tried other add-ins that promise to do similar things, most notably Getting Things Done, which Marc Orchant raves about. But that program tried to force me into a new system, and I wasn’t comfortable with the adjustment.

ClearContext Inbox Manager doesn’t insist that I learn its way of working. Instead, it makes it easier for me to use Outlook the way I always have. You can try it out for 30 days, and if you like it, pay $29.95 to keep using it.

Now, if someone can just come up with a program to file this four-foot-high stack of paper on my desk…

Time tools

I’ve been thinking about time today. This weekend marks the end of Daylight Saving Time. Fortunately, I live in a state that doesn’t spring forward or fall back, so I don’t have to run around like a madman this weekend and change all the clocks, but you probably do. So don’t forget!

I was also thinking about time this morning because I had to place a call to some associates in Italy. What time is it there? I thought I knew, but wasn’t sure, so I went to one of my all-time favorite sites: www.timeanddate.com.

They’ve got time zone converters, international dialing codes, DST information, and much more. My favorite is a Personal World Clock, which lets you build a custom display of the current time in up to 16 cities from around the world.

Bookmark it!

HDTV + PVR = Nirvana

The good folks at G4TechTV are on the same page as me. In HDTV Epiphany, they say:

What’s the point of signing up for high-definition TV service and spending thousands of dollars on the hardware if you can’t pause, rewind and record the HD content? You’d have to pry my cold dead fingers off the remote control before I’d give up my time shifting rights.

Thankfully, it won’t come to that. High-definition DVRs have, at long last, begun to hit the market for cable, satellite and plain, old over-the-air content at a time when service providers are also expanding their HD offerings. And it’s not a moment too soon. HD broadcasts are still about as rare as a cheap HDTV, but the stuff that is airing I want to see, making it even more compelling to have the ability to record what does air.

G4techTV labs looked at three HD recorders all for around $1000 that offer extremely high resolution if you can afford the extremely high price.

Not there yet, but getting close…

Oh, and as long as we’re talking about digital media… I now have a copy of MCE 2005 and will be installing it as soon as I have some spare time. (January? February?)

Windows Validation?

My RSS feed just passed along news of a Critical Update for Windows XP. When I clicked the link, it took me to this page: Download details: Critical Update for Windows XP (KB887822). So far, perfectly normal. But then I saw a yellow box in the center of the page, with this text:

This download is available to customers running genuine Microsoft Windows. Please click Continue to begin Windows validation.

Windows Validation? First I’ve heard of this. I clicked the link and found another link to a Why Validate? page that sorta kinda explains what’s going on.

This is separate and distinct from Windows Product Activation. So far, it’s not a required step. You have to go through the validation screen, where you are prompted to install an ActiveX control on your computer. You can choose not to validate and still get the download.

It looks like this is the next step in Microsoft’s anti-piracy program. The broader effort, called Windows Genuine Advantage, was very quietly announced last month. So quietly, in fact, that I missed this report from Microsoft Monitor:

Under the Windows Genuine program, Microsoft would require an extra step before users would be able to use the Download Center–that’s assuming the program evolves as conceived. At Download Center, Microsoft provides updates to all its software. Users with product-activated Windows would go through a fairly seamless process to the Download Center, since Microsoft had already collected anonymous information associated with the operating system and hardware. Apparently, both mechanisms, activation and validation, would deposit an ActiveX control on the PC. Microsoft hasn’t said whether Windows validation would be required to download its other products running on the operating system.

Users that had not activated–and that could be a whole bunch of people given that most PCs ship without need of the process–would have to go through an anonymous process to validate their copy of Windows, basically by the Certificate of Authenticity key. Once validated, users would have access to Download Center. If not validated, downloads would be restricted to critical updates.

Hmmm. I know a lot of people who are opposed to installing any ActiveX control, and it’s hard to convince them to trust this one, no matter how many assurances of safety and anonymity you provide. I sympathize with the goal of stopping piracy, but it cannot interfere in any way with the goal of making security patches readily available for all versions of Windows.

I’ll keep you posted as I learn more.

Update: I went through the validation process using Firefox. The validation routine required that I download and run a very small executable program – no ActiveX required. After the program ran, it popped up a small box with a seven-character alphanumeric code in it. I pasted that code into a matching box on the validation page and that was it.

I can’t wait to read all the protests about how intrusive and offensive this process is. Wanna take bets on how many of the people screaming the loudest never actually go through this process?